1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a portable computer having a function of displaying a menu screen on which an operation to be executed is selected with an icon.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional portable computer such as a laptop computer or a notebook computer, when tasks based on various types of application software are to be executed, various types of operations are required, e.g., installation of an OS (operating system) as basic software for a system operation from a floppy disk, a hard disk, or the like into the main memory; and entry of execution commands, prior to the execution of the tasks. For this reason, especially for unskilled persons, a problem is posed in terms of operability.
In consideration of operability, some recently developed wordprocessors have a function of displaying a menu screen having a plurality of icons for task selection at the time the power is turned on, thereby allowing the user to arbitrarily select a task on the menu screen.
However, the menu screen of a conventional apparatus of this type is designed such that a plurality of icons to be selected are fixed to preset display positions on the menu screen. In addition, an initial icon selection position is fixed. For this reason, if an icon indicating a task to be executed is not located at the initial icon selection position, a selecting operation including an operation of moving the icon selection position must be performed. More specifically, a cursor indicates an icon at the uppermost left end on the menu screen at the time the power is turned on. If, therefore, target software is registered in an icon at the lowermost right end, the cursor must be moved to the icon to select it. In addition, the arrangement of icons is often unsuitable for personal use, and hence it is not easy to use such a portable computer, posing a problem in terms of operability.
A description of icon rearrangement is given in "Microsoft Windows (TM) User's Guide", Microsoft in the U.S. (published in 1985). The arrangement of the program icons can be adjusted in two ways. In one way, the arrangement icons command on Program Manager's Window menu is selected each time resizing a group window is finished. In the alternative way, the auto arrangement command on Program Manager's Options menu is selected before a group window is resized.